Tuesday, December 20, 2005

The January 10th, 2006 meeting of KM Chicago will have Dr. Michael McDonald, speaking on "KM in Disaster Management."

As always, we meet on the 2nd Tuesday of the month from 5-7 pm at Factiva in the Loop or at Allstate in Northbrook. Dr. McDonald will join us via webinar. Also note that people frequently go out for food & drink after the meetings.

Dr. McDonald is developing crisis management policy and technologies on international, national, state, and local levels. The "Decade of Behavior" speaker, Dr. Michael McDonald, is a noted expert in communication and terrorism and frequently testifies before Congress on various risk communication issues. For KM Chicago, Dr. McDonald will demonstrate the Disaster Knowledge Management System and illuminate the Chicago Resilience Network.

Dr. Michael McDonald is Coordinator of the National Disaster Risk Communication Initiative and President and CEO of Global Health Initiatives, Inc. He is Communications Chairman of the National Capital Region - Emergency Response, CADS Senior Scientist in the School of Engineering at George Washington University, and the Health and Biodefense Coordinator of the Georgetown University Life Sciences and Society Initiative. He is currently leading the Advances in Behavioral, Social, and Natural Sciences for Homeland Security Initiative and is the Director of the Tsunami Disaster Knowledge Management Initiative. Dr. McDonald has been involved in policy development regarding biodefense, homeland security, environmental science, and health information infrastructure on local, state, national, and international levels. During the later part of the 1990s, he was recognized as one of the most influential figures in furthering telehealth and telemedicine. Dr. McDonald has received several honors and most recently he won the Decade of Behavior Distinguished Lecture Award. For this award, he was nominated by the National Communication Association.

Dr. McDonald's primary attention today is directed at building the next generation of health and crisis management systems integrating health care systems, emergency management, information technologies, community resilience, and knowledge science. Dr. McDonald continues to pioneer in the development of health information systems, virtual health management systems, decision support systems, knowledge management, evidence-based practices and cross-media health and community empowerment. Dr. McDonald is presently chairing the Genomics and Bioinformatics working group and is a co-founding member of the Bioterrorism working group of IEEE. Dr. McDonald is performing research in memetics and biosecurity at Georgetown University and is Principle Investigator with the Centers for Disease Control on the Psychosocial Dimensions of Biodefense Initiative. He is a Senior Scientist in the Center for Advanced Defense Studies and a Research Professor working in the area of homeland security in the George Washington School of Engineering.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Tuesday, December 13Factiva, One S. Wacker Drive, 22nd floor Please note: at this location only since we are having a videoconference and wine tasting.

If you are coming, please RSVP to kmchicago-owner AT yahoogroups.com.

5PM - 6PM

Using Text mining and Visualization to Make Sense of Content Chaos

What are text mining and visualization and how can these new technologies impact your business? Text mining is the use of advanced technology to analyze content and discover emerging trends via reports or on screen visualizations. Learn how several technologies can be used to extract value from large amounts of content, allowing the user to monitor existing issues and spot new opportunities or threats, thereby serving as an early warning system for organizations.Speaker: Glenn Fannick, Factiva Product Development Manager

Friday, October 21, 2005

As always, the meeting will be from 5-7 pm on the 2nd Tuesday (Nov 8th)The speakers will be at the Allstate location in Northbrook, and we will have our normal webcast to FActiva in the Loop.

Abstract: The North Suburban Library System (NSLS) is a multi-type consortium serving more than 650 member libraries in the northwest suburbs of Illinois.NSLS needed a way for its members to enhance their face-to-face networking meetings and communicate more effectively in an electronic environment.This presentation will give an overview of NSLS’s KM initiative with an in-depth look at the implementation of Community of Practices (CoPs) among our membership.We'll explore how we went about creating the CoPs in-house, gathering feedback, and making enhancements.We'll discuss internal and external marketing of the CoPs as well as the lessons learned throughout.Finally, we'll talk about our success with the CoPs and our KM initiative and what's planned for the future.

Speakers Christina Stoll is the Knowledge Manager and Special Library Liaison for the North Suburban Library System, spear heading their Knowledge Management Initiative.Her work in libraries began in 1995 and she has been working for NSLS for the past four years, have recently taken over as Member Liaison to the Special Libraries.Christina’s expertise is with project management of the KM Initiative, taxonomies, organizational development and staff training.She earned her Masters in Library and Information Science degree from DominicanUniversity in 2001.Christina has presented on NSLS’s KM Initiative several times, most recently at APQC’s annual conference in May 2005, and will be speaking at the 8th Annual Braintrust International 2006 in February.

Debbie Baaske is the Special Projects Coordinator and Academic Library Liaison for the North Suburban Library System.She has over six years experience training and presenting on library related issues.Recently she presented at Infotoday, LITA (Libraries in Technology) and APQC on Knowledge Management and will present at the 8th Annual Braintrust International 2006 in February.Debbie's expertise is with CoPs as the leader of the team that has created over 19 CoPs for NSLS' member libraries.Debbie earned her Masters in Library Science from Long IslandUniversity and her Bachelors in Business Administration from St. Joseph's College.Prior to working as a consultant at NSLS, Debbie worked as a trainer/customer support specialist for a software company.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Tuesday, December 135PM - 6PMFactiva, One S. Wacker Drive, 22nd floorPlease note: at this location only since we are having a videoconference and wine tasting

Using Text mining and Visualization to Make Sense of Content Chaos

What are text mining and visualization and how can these new technologies impact your business? Text mining is the use of advanced technology to analyze content and discover emerging trends via reports or on screen visualizations. Learn how several technologies can be used to extract value from large amounts of content, allowing the user to monitor existing issues and spot new opportunities or threats, thereby serving as an early warning system for organizations.Speaker: Glenn Fannick, Factiva Product Development Manager

Thursday, October 06, 2005

If you are joining us a CNA in the Loop, please print this and bring it along. Many thanks to CNA for hosting this month. (To clarify, we will also be hosting the virtual meeting at the regular Allstate location.)

Location - CNA Plaza: 333 S Wabash - the red high rise.Enter on Wabash sideProceed to sign-in table on the south end of the plaza.We'll take the elevator to the second floor and follow the signs to conference room 210.

Dial-in / Webinar:TO ATTEND A VOICE ONLY CONFERENCE:

Dial into 877-262-3500 (US Toll-free). Or, in Home Office, just dial ext. 3500

Press 1 to attend the meeting

Follow the prompts to enter the Meeting ID 195971 and join the meeting

TO ATTEND A VOICE AND WEB CONFERENCE:

Go to http://meetings.cna.com/join.asp?195971

Sign in as Guest or with your CNA MeetingPlace account. Press Enter or Click Attend Meeting (Accept any security warnings you receive and wait for the MeetingPlace to initialize)

Click on the Phone Icon to have the system call you or simply follow the Voice Conference instructions above

For more information about this particular MeetingPlace Conference, please contact the meeting organizer: Robert Guardi, 312-822-4189.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

The October 11th meeting of KM Chicago will be at CNA Insurance in the Loop, rather than at Factiva. Directions and webinar information available shortly.

Abstract: The concept of CNA’s Performance Support Tool (PST) originated with business requirements to satisfy an ever-challenging business issue – “to deliver expert information to users at the right time and in the right place”. The concept of performance support is important as it indicates CNA's commitment to using Knowledge Management (KM) best practices to achieve measurable results. The relationship between knowledge management and performance support is straightforward: KM tools, techniques, strategies, and processes serve as the enablers of performance support. In this view, performance support answers the question of why CNA is engaging in KM-related initiatives. Similarly, KM initiatives provide the answer of how CNA will be executing and supporting performance support initiatives.

CNA’s Knowledge and Learning Group centrally manages the collection, clustering, sharing and presentation of knowledge, manuals, guidelines, procedures, and management of content. The PST aids this business process by providing an electronic easy-to-navigate user interface that provides anytime, anywhere access to knowledge.

The tool is built on collaboration software that has been customized to allow pre-selected business subject matter experts to manage their own content without knowing any specific programming language. The tool integrates common communication software (i.e. email, corporate portal, instant messenger) and a “Google-like” search to allow for both push and pull of expert information. Content is loaded into a business process-based taxonomy that is pre-developed by a core group of subject matter experts. The PST requires that the content owner add meta-tags to all information. Some examples of required meta-tags are: effective dates (go-live date), expiration date (date that the content will be deleted unless refreshed by the content owner), key words (acronyms or common misspellings), and a content owner (an active CNA employee).

Users are able to search within their own function or across multiple functions for key information needs. Additionally a user can provide direct feedback to the content owner’s through the tool. This feature has created a heightened awareness of the content’s accuracy, clarity and quality.

In sum, CNA’s Performance Support Tool enhances CNA's business operations through the careful growth and development of critical information, knowledge tools and resources.

BiosJay Kostrzewa, PMP, is the Assistant Vice President in the Knowledge and Learning Group for CNA Financial. Mr. Kostrzewa is responsible for CNA's Knowledge Management program, IT Learning and Development curriculum, and Learning Systems and Metrics. He has been responsible for CNA's Knowledge Management for the past 4 years. Prior to CNA, Jay led Whirlpool Europe's (Milan, Italy) Knowledge Management practices within their Finance department.

He holds a MBA in International Marketing and Finance from DePaul University.

Brooke Lord is the Operations Consultant for CNA's collaboration tools. Brooke joined CNA in 1994 and has held a myriad of roles. She started on the business side of the house in Risk Control and eventually made her way to CNA's Knowledge & Learning Group in 2002 focusing on Performance Management. In 2004, she moved to KM within KLG. Her prior experience includes Risk Control work for three other insurance carriers over a span of 21 years.

On a personal note, Brooke is walking a bit gingerly of late as she ran her second Chicago Marathon on Sunday, October 2.

Bob Guardi is a Project Manager in the Knowledge & Learning Group (KLG). He has managed or advised on various KM type projects at CNA for the past 4 years including Executive Dashboards, Expert Locator, Online Reference Centers, Taxonomy Development, Application User Interface (Usability), and Portals. Bob is the hands-on administrator for many of the KLG applications and adviser for most KLG technology initiatives. His prior experience includes 4 years in CNA IT leading a development team as well as programming client/server applications. Before coming to CNA he was a programmer and network administrator for a Market Research company based in Chicago.

Brian Richardson, PMP, is the president of Richardson Consulting Group (RCG), a management consulting firm with expertise in knowledge management, talent management, process improvement, and technology deployment. Mr. Richardson specializes in the financial services industries and his recent engagements include work at CNA, Wells Fargo, HomeBanc Mortgage and First American Tax Services. Prior to RCG, Mr. Richardson was a project manager at Allstate and a Senior Manager in the Financial Services practice at Accenture.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Jason Marty will provide an overview of KM in the legal industry (terms & trends), a review of the KM initiative at Baker & McKenzie, and a forward look at KM opportunities in the coming years. The discussion will combine some analysis of technical trends with a focus on the cultural and organizational aspects of implementing a knowledge management program.

BIO:Jason Marty is the Global Director of Knowledge Management for Baker & McKenzie Global Services, LLC. Mr. Marty is responsible for implementing the Firm's knowledge management program and managing the efforts of a global team of lawyers and professional staff. He holds a Masters degree in Rhetoric from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA and a Bachelors degree from Drake University in Des Moines, IA.

MEETING DETAILS:Jason Marty is planning to present from the Factiva offices, and we will also have the usual webinar / teleconference to the Allstate location. See the location details in the sidebar at http://kmchicago.blogspot.com/. As usual, we are scheduled from 5-7 pm.

Strategic Challenge Allstate Financial has several contact centers located in three different states, each of which operations semi-autonomously. As we have integrated these call centers to handle calls from other locations, we discovered a need for sharing of information by customer service representatives. Much of the information used to answer customer and agent calls was inconsistent among representatives and across service centers and largely paper based. Life insurance and annuities are, by and large, heavily regulated by state. Approval of all content by our Legal, Tax and Compliance departments created a challenge many organizations undertaking content management do not have to face. Training already takes far too long and taking representatives off the phone for training they may not use immediately is not effective.

Solution We needed to create a content management solution that would transform existing paper and scattered on-line documents into dynamic, interactive knowledge delivered at the moment of need.

We developed a new paradigm, where the employee/learner is viewed as a knowledge seeker, with constantly changing learning needs and timeframes.

Presenter BiosTheresa Calabrese is a graduate of National-Louis University and has over 24 years of experience with Allstate Insurance in Human Resources, Training Design and Delivery and front line management. In addition to co-leading the Knowledge Management initiative, she is working on a project to enhance Leadership development and accountability

Jenny Matya is a graduate of Indiana University. She interned two years with Allstate Financial training and accepted a permanent position upon graduation. In 2004, Jenny joined the Knowledge Management team and has worked extensively with our technology partners to create system specifications and the automated workflow in Interwoven.

Barbara Miller brought 21 years of personal trust administration experience to Allstate during the inception of the Allstate Bank. Barb has a MLIS from Dominican University and earned her 6 Sigma Black Belt certification in 2004. Her library science and 6 Sigma skills are a great asset to the Knowledge Management initiative. She has worked extensively in developing and analyzing measurements for the project.

Nancy Wise brought over twenty years of management experience when she joined Allstate Financial in 1998. Since joining Allstate, she has managed the training department that supports the Allstate Financial Operations service centers and most recently is managing the Knowledge Management team.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Kevin Desouza of The Engaged Enterprise will present on "Plug-n-Play Knowledge Management" at the July meeting of KM Chicago. He will be located at our Loop location (Factiva) with live webcast to our Allstate location (see sidebar for details).

Date:July 12, 2005Time:5:00 - 7:00 pm

Summary: Knowledge management agendas are most often characterized as static, one-time, and inflexible. Organizations may gather knowledge, code it, store it, and apply it. Yet, when faced with a similar problem in the future, most organizations will be forced to reinvent knowledge and move through the creating and application cycles again - a costly and ineffective proposition. One reason, for this is the lack of foresight and upfront care in devising a flexible knowledge management system. What does it mean to build a knowledge program that is flexible and agile? Mr. Desouza will highlight how one can build a knowledge program that resembles the "plug-n-play" approach. The concept of "plug-n-play" is familiar to us from the computer hardware domain. Without plug-n-play capabilities integration of seemingly unrelated and distinct hardware components will become cumbersome and unfriendly. In the presentation, Mr. Desouza will discuss what features and components are required in order to build a knowledge program that emulates the plug-n-play nature.

Biographical detail: Kevin C. Desouza is the President of The Engaged Enterprise, a strategy consulting firm with expertise in the areas of knowledge management, crisis management, strategic deployment of information systems, and government and competitive intelligence assignments. He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Engaged Business Research, a think-tank of the Engaged Enterprise. He has authored Managing Knowledge with Artificial Intelligence (Quorum Books, 2002), and co-authored Managing Information in Complex Organizations (M.E. Sharpe, 2005). He recently edited New Frontiers of Knowledge Management and co-authored Engaged Knowledge Management both books are scheduled for release by Palgrave Macmillan in early 2005. In addition, he has published over 80 articles in prestigious academic and practitioner journals such as Information and Management, Communications of the ACM, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Technology Forecasting and Social Change, Government Information Quarterly, Journal of Business Strategies, International Journal of Technology Policy and Management, Business Strategy Review, Emergence, IT Professional, Journal of Knowledge Management, Knowledge Management Review, Knowledge and Process Management, International Journal of Information Management, European Management Journal, HR Magazine, among others. He is currently serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Information Science and Technology and is on the editorial board of several journals. Mr. Desouza has been an invited speaker on a number of cutting-edge business and technology topics for industry and academic audiences.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

The June 14th meeting will feature a presentation by Jay Budzik, PhD, founder and CTO of Intellext, Inc., based in Evanston. The presentation will include a demo of Watson.

Dr. Jay Budzik, co-inventor of Intellext's core product, Watson, leads the research and development efforts of the company. Prior to founding Intellext, he was an active researcher in computer science for the last seven years at Northwestern University's Intelligent Information Laboratory, where he led a wide array of research projects aimed at facilitating access to information. Dr. Budzik's other projects included an intelligent question and answering system for delegates at the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in 1996, and the Flytrap system, which automatically synthesizes new music experiences for a group based on observed preferences. He is widely published on topics ranging from groupware to intelligent agents. One Budzik paper, "User Interactions with Everyday Applications as Context for Just-in-time Information Access", is cited frequently by top international researchers and industry leaders. Budzik has delivered demonstrations and lectures to audiences ranging from international research groups to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, including invited talks at Ford Motor Company, the MIT Media Lab, the International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, and the American Society for Information Science. Articles on Budzik's research have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times, WGN-TV and L'Ordinateur Individuel. Budzik earned a B.S. with both general honors and honors in computer science from The College of The University of Chicago, and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Is it possible to keep essential knowledge from leaving the company as experts change jobs and approach retirement? Members of the UOP KM Core Team will present a review of the techniques & tools they are using to facilitate Knowledge Retention. They’ll discuss results from their Knowledge Continuity pilot program in 2004 and plans for expanding elements of that program in 2005. In addition, they’ll share some of their methods to help business units prioritize knowledge retention projects, show examples of knowledge maps in use at UOP, and talk about new retention techniques that will be piloted soon.

Bios:Michael Schoonover has over 26 years experience at UOP as both a scientist and manager, and has been Director of Knowledge Management since 2002. He has a Ph.D. in chemistry, and earned his Six Sigma Black Belt certification in 2004 in KM. In addition to leading the core KM strategy and implementation team, he has responsibility for best practices in technology management processes. He has written and lectured throughout his career on technology management, innovation, and scientific discovery.

Laura Claggett joined UOP in early 2002 as the Library Manager, and was formerly with Helene Curtis/Unilever for 18 years as an information researcher and library manager. She began working on UOP’s Knowledge Management team in 2003, and earned her Six Sigma Green Belt certification in 2004 in KM. In addition, Laura teaches the Special Libraries course at Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Christina Krawczyk has over 15 years experience in corporate libraries, and joined UOP in 2002 as an Information Specialist. She began working on UOP’s Knowledge Management team in 2004, and managed the Knowledge Continuity pilot project last year. Christina was one of 30 Illinois librarians selected to participate in Synergy: The Illinois Library Leadership Initiative 2004, a unique yearlong program designed to develop future leaders in the library professions and in the Illinois community.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

“As a general rule, the most successful people in life are the ones who have the best information.” Benjamin Disraeli

What’s true in life is true in business: Successful companies are the ones that have the best information. But how does an organization develop the capability to recognize, capture, and leverage the “best information?”

Susan Leandri, managing director of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Best Practices will discuss ways that companies can actually create their own “best practices capability” including how to capture and share key working practices, replicate best practices, and create an incubator for nurturing new ideas on performing business processes.

Developing this best practices capability will become increasingly important as demographic and workforce changes (such turnover for mid-career employees and outsourcing) lead to significant loss of critical knowledge. By developing a best practices capability, companies have a tool to help control the costs of lost knowledge and improve their ability to remain a learning organization.

Since 2002, Sue has led the Global Best Practices team at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Prior to that, she was a founding member of Global Best Practices at Andersen. She has over 12 years of experience in knowledge management, with particular expertise in creating best practices and benchmarking capabilities within organizations, and intellectual capital management.

Locations:

1. Allstate Insurance Co., 3075 Sanders Road, Northbrook, IL. Directions: Use the main entrance on 3075 Sanders Rd., Northbrook. Follow signs for G Building Visitor Parking. Get into the G building through the main entrance and tell the receptionist/security guard you came to attend the KMPro meeting. The meeting is taking place in the G Auditorium, directly behind the reception desk. If you have questions, call Luc Dodinval at 847-667-8144.

or

2. Factiva, 1 South Wacker Drive, 22nd Floor, Chicago, IL. Directions: Proceed to the 22nd floor, enter the Factiva offices and follow signs to the conference room. If you have questions, call Ann Lee at 312-750-4023.

VIRTUAL Participation:

You have been invited to attend a Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

At the time of the meeting, click on the following link to attend.http://www.placeware.com/cc/factiva/join?id=7XXS9G&role=attend&pw=M6TZPR

Friday, January 14, 2005

Rick Klau will discuss the market opportunity for social software, the reasons for its growth, and the benefits afforded organizations who embrace it. Socialtext was the first company to offer a commercial wiki product, and has expanded its enterprise social software application to include weblogs, RSS support, and integration points to IM applications as well as newer collaboration tools like Skype.

Prior to Socialtext, Rick was the VP, Vertical Markets for Interface Software, an Oak Brook-based CRM software company focused on the professional services market. A noted author and speaker on KM and technology strategy, Rick maintains a weblog focused on these (and other) issues at www.rklau.com/tins/.

At the time of the meeting, click on the following link to attend.
http://www.placeware.com/cc/factiva/join?id=S39Q9D&role=attend&pw=5RZQ6M

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Tuesday, March 8
5- 7PM
Jonathan Sapir (will be presenting in Northbrook)
Biography: Jonathan Sapir
Jonathan has almost 30 years experience building business systems for a wide range of companies across a diverse range of industries. He spent many years with IBM South Africa, where he received numerous awards for technical innovation related to the APL programming language, one of the very first non-technical development tools. In 1993, he started his own Chicago-based software development and consulting company, InfoPower Systems, Inc., which he continues to run today.

Over the last two years, Jonathan has been highly focused on creating a new paradigm for business software development. His work in this area led to the publication of a book (Igniting the Phoenix: A New Vision for IT), as well as the development of a product based on the ideas in the book, SnapXT. Jonathan has also authored and been quoted in numerous articles on this and other key IT-related subjects.

Presentation: Technology trends and their impact on knowledge management

Locations for both meetings:
1. Allstate Insurance Co., 3075 Sanders Road, Northbrook, IL. Directions: Use the main entrance on 3075 Sanders Rd., Northbrook. Follow signs for G Building Visitor Parking. Get into the G building through the main entrance and tell the receptionist/security guard you came to attend the KMPro meeting. The meeting is taking place in the G Auditorium, directly behind the reception desk. If you have questions, call Luc Dodinval at 847-667-8144.

or

2. Factiva, 1 South Wacker Drive, 22nd Floor, Chicago, IL. Directions: Proceed to the 22nd floor, enter the Factiva offices and follow signs to the conference room. If you have questions, call Ann Lee at 312-750-4023.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

In writing my review of Reed Stuedemann's talk, I came across a number of additional articles and other references to this project, listed below. The Yet2.com link provides some graphics and screen shots for those who missed part of the presentation.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

The January 2005 meeting of KM Chicago is a presentation by Mr. Reed Stuedemann of Caterpillar. He will present an overview of the knowledge sharing process, starting with how Caterpillar got to where it is today, lessons learned, how the company measures value/success and then will show how it is being applied in the real world.

Since 2001, Reed Stuedemann has served as Caterpillar’s Knowledge Sharing Manager. As the Knowledge Sharing Manager, Stuedeman is responsible for a variety of communication efforts including Caterpillar’s Knowledge Network. This is an internally developed collaboration tool that allows the individuals across Caterpillar’s value chain to derive knowledge and solutions through Communities of Practice.

Time:
5-7PM

Locations:
1. Allstate Insurance Co., 3075 Sanders Road, Northbrook, IL. Directions: Use the main entrance on 3075 Sanders Rd., Northbrook. Follow signs for G Building Visitor Parking. Get into the G building through the main entrance and tell the receptionist/security guard you came to attend the KMPro meeting. The meeting is taking place in the G Auditorium, directly behind the reception desk. If you have questions, call Luc Dodinval at 847-667-8144.

or

2. Factiva, 1 South Wacker Drive, 22nd Floor, Chicago, IL. Directions: Proceed to the 22nd floor, enter the Factiva offices and follow signs to the conference room. If you have questions, call Ann Lee at 312-750-4023.

or

Join the WebEx presentation:
https://cat.webex.com/cat
Meeting title is KM Chicago - Knowledge Management At Caterpillar
Meeting passcode is 1234567890
Phone bridge is 877-494-4700 and the phone access code is 587149